Tom Lisanti's - Sixties Cinema

2009-07-14T07:06:00.003-04:00

GRACIOUS GLAMOUR GIRL

Lovely Inga Neilsen was dubbed on the Internet as “A Nordic Goddess Supreme, the World’s Greatest Glamazon” and the statuesque beauty clearly deserves the title. Standing 6-foot-3 in heels, this striking blue-eyed blonde had curves galore and was built to be ogled on the big screen in '60s spy spoofs (including In Like Flint as the Head Amazonian guard who leads her compatriots in Operation Smooch) and musical extravaganzas (including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum as slave Zero Mostel's love interest the mute Gymnasia and Funny Girl as the scintillating Winter Bride, the most dazzling of Ziegfeld Girls). Her body was not all Inga offered as she was an accomplished singer and had comedic talent to hold her own opposite some of the decades top comedians in numerous TV variety shows.

I interviewed Inga for my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood. Below are clips from a local Southern California talk show called Jodie in Malibu that Inga appeared on. I was taken aback in clip two where Inga pushed my book and said kind words about me. What a nice classy woman.

2009-07-12T06:36:00.001-04:00

MAKING HER CONVENTION DEBUT...

is the lovely Quinn O'Hara. You lucky Southlanders can meet Quinn at the upcoming Hollywood Collectors Show on July 18 and 19. After years of prodding, Quinn will be there signing autographs along with other 60s celebrities including Tommy Kirk, Francine York, Martine Beswicke, Edd Byrnes, Luciana Paluzzi, and Lana Wood. Quinn has a wonderful collection of publicity photos and movie stills of her so stop by and say hello. She is one of the nicest people you will ever meet.

From my book, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies:

A “red-headed gasser,” Quinn O’Hara certainly lived up to that description and became very popular with teenage audiences during the sixties. A former Miss Scotland, this titan-haired beauty began on television before appearing in minor film roles with major stars such as Jerry Lewis and Jack Lemmon. Younger audiences remembered her best for her two back-to-back starring roles in two beach-party movies. O’Hara exuded a natural sex appeal that had every boy’s heart racing either playing the good girl as in A Swingin’ Summer (1965) or the vixen as in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966). She should have become a major star however, disenchanted with the roles being offered her, Quinn fled to England in the late sixties where she worked on stage, TV and an occasional film.

Quinn O’Hara was dramatically born in a hospital’s elevator going up in Edinburgh, Scotland on Jan. 3, 1941 to a Welsh father and a Scottish-Irish mother who named the impatient newborn Alice Jones. Most of her childhood was spent in a convent boarding school in Wales. When she turned fourteen, she and her mother moved to Quebec, Canada where the blossoming teenager learned to speak French. After three years, they upped and moved to Long Beach, California where the red haired beauty stood out from the myriad of California blondes. Her European origins prevented her from competing in the Miss California contest but she was dubbed Miss Scotland by the Royal Order of her home country.

With all the newfound attention she was receiving and with the acting offers coming in, Alice Jones morphed into the more appropriate name for a titan-hair Scottish lass, Quinn O’Hara. Her big screen debut was in a bit part in The Errand Boy (1961) starring Jerry Lewis. O’Hara would go on to work with Lewis again in The Patsy (1964) playing the minor role of a cigarette girl and in Who’s Minding the Store? (1963), though her scenes were cut.

O’Hara’s first taste of fame came when she was selected to appear with Vic Damone in his 1962 Emmy-nominated summer series The Lively Ones. The popular show brought O’Hara notoriety and she became very much in demand on TV but she wasn’t having much luck with films. Only her hand was on display in The Caretakers (1963) where she played a nurse. Good Neighbor, Sam (1964) featured all of Quinn in the small role of a curvy secretary to recently promoted ad man Jack Lemmon. O’Hara kept persevering. She began getting press in all the movie rags of the time and she was chosen by Photoplay to be photographed on a pre-arranged “date” with teen idol Fabian. But surprisingly, the duo hit it off and it developed into a relationship that lasted a year.

In 1965 Quinn O’Hara co-starred in one of the better Beach Party knockoffs A Swingin’ Summer with William Wellman, Jr. James Stacy, and Mary Mitchel. Though it was not her first color movie it was her first lead role. She looked terrific in her mod swimsuits and more than held her own with rising superstar, Raquel Welch.

Quinn next auditioned at AIP for the role of the sexy though bumbling Sinistra in what was then titled Bikini Party in a Haunted House. It was not her first encounter with the studio. The producers and director Don Weis originally wanted her for a role in Pajama Party (1964) but she declined because “I didn’t want to be just one of the beach girls so I turned it down.” AIP decided they needed to pump new life into their beach-party genre so they came up with an idea of combining it with a horror angle, which had worked so well for them with the series of Edgar Allan Poe films. Bikini Party in a Haunted House featured Tommy Kirk, Deborah Walley and Patsy Kelly as heirs to a fortune who gather at the creepy mansion of dead millionaire, Hiram Stokely, to hear the reading of his will. O’Hara played the bumbling daughter of crooked attorney Basil Rathbone who instructs the vixen to off Kelly’s interfering nephew Aron Kincaid. But her nearsightedness keeps getting in her way. That's her reallysinging in the clip below.

The head honchos at AIP decreed that Bikini Party in a Haunted House was not releasable. To salvage the film, scenes with Boris Karloff as the recently departed Hiram Stokely and Susan Hart as his long-dead wife, Cecily, were added and the film was re-titled The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Though the film was not a big moneymaker, AIP was so impressed with O’Hara that they offered her another film. However, it was the laughable low-budget sci-fi flick In the Year 2889 (1967), co-starring Paul Petersen of The Donna Reed Show and directed by self-described “schlockmeister” Larry Buchanan. Much better was the Academy Award-nominated short film, Prelude (1968) starring O’Hara as the bitchy wife of meek John Astin who meets his fantasy girl Karen Jensen in a supermarket.

It was shortly thereafter that Quinn O’Hara departed Hollywood for London to do theatre. One of the films Quinn O’Hara did while in Europe was a small role as a “witch wench” in the AIP horror film Cry of the Banshee (1970) starring Vincent Price and she made a guest appearance on TV's The Saint with Roger Moore. O’Hara’s last movie was Rubia’s Jungle (1971), which was shot in the Netherlands.

During her time in England, O’Hara made periodical trips back to Hollywood to maintain her working status. She could be seen on TV in To Rome with Love, The Smith Family and Ironside, and on the big screen in the cult sex comedy The Teacher (1974). Then Quinn disappeared from show business. On a trip to Africa to visit her father who was working there she met an Italian guy there. She accompanied him back to Italy where they were suppose to marry but didn’t. When she returned to Hollywood in the late seventies she found it surprisingly difficult to get work. Her friend, director Don Weis, gave her a part in an episode of CHiPs and she landed two small roles on One Day at a Time. Unfortunately, that was all she could muster.

Like a number of her contemporaries, O’Hara took up real estate to make ends meet. After a short-lived marriage Quinn met Bill Kirk who is twenty years her junior in 1981. They married, divorced, and have since reconciled. Today, Quinn O’Hara works as a nurse and has reactivated her acting career. She still has her va-va-voom looks and wants another chance at the big time. “I wanted then and still might get an Academy Award,” says Quinn defiantly. “I haven’t given up and will put my face out there and let people know that I am alive. I have set up a web site and have started attending acting workshops and Tai Chi.”

Looking back at her beach party days, Quinn says, “Beach movies reflected the times. I think that is important that people look back on these films and remember them for what they were. It was good clean fun not like the smut you see today on the Internet. I am proud to have been a part of it.”

2009-07-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

THE WAIT IS OVER!

Sixties starlet Gail Gerber's memoir, co-written by moi, Trippin' with Terry Southern; What I Think I Remember is now available. Click here to purchase your copy through Amazon.com.

If I do say so myself, the book is very entertaining. The chapter that stands out for me is Gail's remembrance of what went on behind-the-scenes in creating Easy Rider. For years and years, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper have given Terry Southern short shrift in regards to the film's success and never shared any of the millions of dollars they earned with him. Today is even worse as "the Lads," as Terry called them, now say he didn't even write the screenplay but only gave them the title. Balderdash says Gail and she is backed up by Terry's original script now housed at The New York Public Library.

2009-07-07T13:05:00.000-04:00

SURF'S UP!

On Turner Classic Movies that is. Set the DVRs for Thursday July 9 beginning at 12:45PM as it is a 4 picture marathon of beach and ski parties. Click here for the schedule.

First up is For Those Who Think Young (1964) where rich college boy James Darren pursues studious coed Pamela Tiffin in and out of the surf. Wonderful supporting cast including Bob Denver and Tina Louise before they were stranded together on Gilligan's Island, Nancy Sinatra, and Paul Lynde and Woody Woodbury as two bickering old queens oops I mean swinging playboys.

Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) sends coeds Mary Ann Mobley, Nancy Sinatra, Chris Noel, and their swinging teacher Joan O'Brien to the ski slopes where pompous Chad Everett wants to make more than beautiful music with budding songwriter Mobley while Latin lover Fabrizio Mioni only has eyes for the naive Noel.

It's a Bikini World (1967) when Deborah Walley and Suzie Kaye decorate the shores of Southern California where chauvinist beach boy Tommy Kirk tries to woo feminist Walley by pretending to be his nerdy twin brother who coaches her in a series of sport challenges.

And finally Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello have a Beach Party (1963) in the movie that started the Hollywood surf movie craze. All your beach movie faves are here including Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, John Ashley, Jody McCrea, Candy Johnson, Valora Noland, Mike Nader, Ed Garner, Johnny Fain, and Delores Wells.

2009-07-06T08:13:00.002-04:00

THE JOAN WHO GOT AWAY

Joan Freeman is one of my favorite starlets from the 60s. I was forever trying to track her down to interview. Out of the blue I got an email from her a few years ago where she told me a friend said I was looking for her. When I replied about interviewing her for my Drive-in Dream Girls book I never heard from her again! LOL

Below is my profile on Joan from the book and it includes at the end a clip of her deleted scenes from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

Winsome Joan Freeman was one of four Joan’s—the others being Joan O’Brien, Joan Blackman, and Joan Staley—who graced movie drive-in screens during the ‘60s. Producers deemed these gals interchangeable as all four Joan’s worked with Elvis Presley, two of them with Jerry Lewis, and two with Don Knotts. How to tell Joan Freeman apart from her counterparts? She is the blue-eyed, honey blonde who was usually cast as the sweet girl-next-door rather than the bikini-clad swinger in such films as Panic in Year Zero! (1962), Roustabout (1964) with Elvis, The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) with Knotts, and The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967) with Roy Orbison.

Joan Leslie Freeman, a purported descendant of Daniel Freeman the state of Nebraska’s first homesteader, was born on January 8, 1942 in Council Bluffs, Iowa though she spent most of her childhood in California when her family moved to Burbank when she was two years old. Her father was a railway postal clerk and her mother a housewife. When Joan was three she began taking dancing lessons and by nine she was a regular on a local Saturday morning children’s program called Fantastic Studios Ink in 1951 along with youngsters Jill St. John and Richard Beymer. That same year Freeman made her film debut playing Joan Leslie as a young girl in Pistol Harvest.

During the remainder of the fifties, Freeman continued appearing on live TV along with the occasional film appearance while attending public school and graduating from John Burrough High School in 1959. She then enrolled at San Fernando Valley College to study accounting but her parents encouraged her not to give up on an acting career. Freeman commented in TV Guide, “I loved to dance and Mother had no objection to my being in these [TV] shows. But she certainly didn’t push me. I wasn’t really what you’d call a dedicated actress. I’m still not for that matter. There were long, long periods of time between each show I did. It was more just for fun than anything else. I would have hated working all the time and going to those studio schools.”

Things began picking up for Freeman in 1959. She played one of Clifton Webb’s many children in The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959) and one of the college students along with Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin who crash at an Italian villa owned by Rock Hudson in Come September (1961). Joan confessed in Show Business International to having a crush on Hudson. “Once I saw him in a white dinner jacket and black pants and I just stood there with my mouth hanging down to my shoe tops. He probably felt very self-conscious.”

After transferring to UCLA, Freeman became a member of its famous Javanese Gamelin Orchestra where she sang and played the xylophone-like stenten. She still continued pursuing acting parts and after losing out to Carole Wells for a continuing role on the TV series National Velvet, Joan was cast as waitress Elma Gahringer in the anthology series Bus Stop loosely based on the 1956 movie. The TV show debuted in September of 1961 and focused on big name guest stars playing characters that stop by the Sherwood Bus Depot and Diner while passing through sleepy Sunrise, Colorado. Bus Stop only lasted a season but is remembered for a violent episode starring Fabian as a wild-eyed youth on a murder spree, which caused one of the earliest public outcries against violence on television.

After Bus Stop was cancelled, Joan guest starred on all the top dramatic series particularly westerns and also began landing leading roles in movies. She was out of her depth though playing Lady Margaret to Vincent Price’s ruthless Richard of Glouchester in the Roger Corman directed film Tower of London (1962). As the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, the deranged Richard holds Margaret hostage in the tower as he begins a rampage killing everybody standing between him and the throne. Panic in Year Zero! (1962) directed by and starring Ray Milland is “a skillfully made exploitation picture” featuring Joan Freeman as Marilyn Hayes, one of the survivors of a nuclear blast that has destroyed Los Angeles. She is discovered hiding in a farmhouse on the outskirts of the city where a trio of toughs has murdered her parents. Harry Baldwin and his son Rick played, respectively, by Milland and Frankie Avalon rescue her from the hoodlums and take her back to the cave where they’ve been hiding with the rest of the Baldwin family. Several days later the lone surviving gang member (Richard Bakalyan) returns to extract his revenge. Rick disarms the youth but a furious Marilyn picks up the rifle and shoots him dead. The film concludes “with the feeling that, as the Baldwins and other good people have survived the atomic attack, civilization will be renewed again soon, perhaps for the better this time.” After making this film, Freeman bemoaned in Life magazine, “For sexy parts it’s blondes. If you’re a blonde you don’t get the stable part.”

In 1962 Freeman received a Photoplay Gold Medal Award nomination for Most Promising New Star (Female) and in 1963 she was voted a Hollywood Deb Star. The pretty blonde landed her first “stable part” in The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963). She played Amelia Carter an American tourist who is rescued from a pair of thugs in Calcutta by Phileas Fogg III (Jay Sheffield) and his servants (The Three Stooges). Fogg has made the same bet his grandfather did with the Reform Club members when one of them makes an accusation that the elder Fogg cheated in his global journey. The following year Freeman followed in the footsteps of Joan Blackman and Joan O’Brien by being romanced by Elvis Presley on drive-in screens across the country. In Roustabout (1964) Joan was the good girl vying for the King’s affections with vixen Sue Ane Langdon as Madame Mijanou amidst a traveling carnival setting. Freeman fretts throughout the movie, as she is either catching Presley’s Danny in a clinch with Mijanou or arguing with her bitter father (Leif Erickson), a drunken carnie. The reviewer in Variety remarked, “Miss Freeman hasn’t much to do except wring her hands…but does it prettily.” Freeman was nominated that year for the Photoplay Gold Medal Award for Best Female Star [Ann-Margret won].

In her next film The Rounders (1965) starring James Stewart, Glenn Ford, and Sue Ane Langdon, Freeman was reduced to a supporting role as a farm girl who pursues a reluctant Ford throughout the movie. Could the fall from lead to support be because early in her career Joan had let it be known that she was not going to play by the rules? “The last thing in the world I want to be is a glamour girl. I just had a fit when they wanted to take pictures in a bathing suit. That’s so Hollywood. I hate to think of myself as a starlet,” remarked the “starlet” in Show Business Illustrated.

Freeman did progress back to leading roles in two more films that were hits on the drive-in movie circuit. Who better to pack the cars in than Don Knotts in the comedy The Reluctant Astronaut (1966) where he played a timid fellow with a fear of heights who gets accepted into the space program? Freeman was cast as his childhood sweetheart. According to the film’s press book, Joan tested for the female lead in Knotts’ previous movie The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and lost out on the role to Joan Staley. Director Edward Montagne remembered her from it and offered her this role without even an audition. In the western The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967) Freeman was finally able to let loose on the big screen playing Sue Chestnut, a dancing barmaid with a fondness towards “scanty undies and silk tights” who travels across the US with her sister Flo (Maggie Pierce) and their beaus as part of a medicine wagon. What Sue doesn’t know is that her guitar-playing boyfriend (Roy Orbison) is really a Confederate spy planning to rob the government mint. The Variety critic panned the movie but praised Freeman and wrote that of all the cast members she was “most at ease and competent, showing ability far beyond this script.” Roy Orbison was smitten with his lovely co-star too and remarked in the film’s press book, “I ought to be paying the studio for the chance to do love scenes with Joan.”

The Fastest Guitar Alive was Freeman’s last ‘60s movie. As with most of Elvis Presley’s early sixties co-stars such as Juliet Prowse, Anne Helm, and Laurel Goodwin, Joan Freeman too fell out of favor with teenage drive-in movie fans during the late sixties. But Joan had the talent and perseverance to continued working well after other drive-in movie starlets had long retired from the big screen. She finally began to out grow the sweet ingenue roles as exemplified playing the wife of drug addict on Insight and a grasping cold-hearted spouse who browbeats her husband to commit a crime on Land of the Giants.

In the eighties Joan Freeman must have surprised her old fans when she turned up playing the mother of terrified teens Kimberly Beck and Corey Feldman in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984). Freeman continued working playing matrons and snooty rich ladies roles well into the nineties. Joan Freeman is alive and well in 2002 and reportedly she is sailing the East Coast with her husband, former director Bruce Kessler.

2009-06-30T07:57:00.002-04:00

DOUBLE VISION

In 1965, two film biographies about legendary thirties sex goddess Jean Harlow both titled Harlow premiered within weeks of each other. The lavish bigger budgeted Harlow from Paramount starring Carroll Baker was a staple on TV for years and was released on home video.

The quickie Electronovision version starring Carol Lynley sporadically showed up on the Late, Late Show during the 70s and then disappeared but recently turned up on bootleg DVD.

Both Harlows were ravished by the critics as were the two actresses. However, 40 years later they are undiscovered camp gems and Baker and Lynley both give over-the-top performances. See the clip from the Lynley version and a tribute to Baker as Harlow below:

2009-06-27T06:52:00.003-04:00

THESE ANGELS DIDN'T GET CHARLIE'S CALL

Speaking of Charlie's Angels, I interviewed two who had Charlie's Angels stories. Francine York starred in The Doll Squad (1973) directed by Ted V. Mikels who until this day claims Aaron Spelling ripped off his idea. In fact, York's character was named Sabrina. Per Francine in Film Fatales, “Ted went to the producers with the premise. They even asked me to audition for Charlie’s Angels and I would have been perfect for it. Charlie Grauman made a pass at me, I turned him down, and that was the end of that!"

Former Playboy Playmate Anne Randall was just coming off a hit drive-in B-movie called Stacy where she played a sexy private eye. She remarked in Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood, "I wasn’t real thrilled with Stacey. It was silly and I looked real stupid in it. After the movie, I got an audition for Charlie’s Angels because of the description of Stacey—I don’t think they actually saw the movie. I went in for the audition and read the scene and saw that it was me wrestling an alligator. I got up and left without auditioning. I thought, ‘I am not going to wrestle an alligator!’ I think they picked the right girls and don’t think I would have gotten it anyway

2009-06-25T08:29:00.000-04:00

R.I.P.

Even though we knew it was coming, I was saddened by the passing of Farrah Fawcett. To be honest though I, like millions of others, had her famous poster hanging on my bedroom wall, I really wasn't a fan of hers or Charlie's Angels. I just never understood the appeal of that show. Surprising since I am such a huge starlet fan. However, I give props to Farrah for turning into a first-rate dramatic TV actress in the 80s and 90s after bombing on the big screen in the late 70s.

2009-06-23T07:17:00.002-04:00

COME SPY WITH ME
During the height of the '60s spy boom, a few actresses headlined their own movies as female James Bonds. Most fans remember Monica Vitti as Modesty Blaise, Raquel Welch as Fathom, and Doris Day as "the spy who came in from the cold cream" in Caprice.

Less remembered but equally memorable was former model Andrea Dromm in Come Spy with Me. Unfortunately the movie is not out on DVD but check out the trailer as it is fast paced fun and hopefully someday will be available.

The lithsome blue-eyed blonde was born in 1945 on Long Island, New York. She grew up in the upper middle class town of Manhasset. As age six she began modeling and progressed from department store catalogs to the cover of True Confessions. Modeling took a back seat to her education for awhile until she returned to New York City. She immediately became one of the most in-demand models and was earning close to $75,000 a year before graduating from print ads to TV commercials. Her most memorable ad was for National Airlines. Dressed as a stewardess, she asked the TV viewer, “Is this any way to run an airline? You bet it is!”

After appearing in the second pilot of Star Trek and making her film debut in The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Dromm was handed the lead in her next film Come Spy with Me (1967) co-starring fading matinee idol Troy Donahue. Since the film’s tag line proclaimed. “They Frug in the water…Swim on the floor…And blow up the Caribbean…Come blow your mind…Come Spy with Me” it’s no surprise the movie opens with a number of go-go boys and girls dancing in silhouette to the title track written and sung by Smokey Robinson. As secret agent Jill Parsons, Dromm (“I’m an agent not a spy!”) is sent to Jamaica to solve the murders of two Americans just before a big meeting of the world’s leaders aboard an aircraft carrier in the island’s waters. Financier Walter Ludecker (Albert Dekker) has been laying bombs throughout the ocean floor to destroy the cruiser and to create an international incident.

Parsons masquerades as a skin diver contestant in a competition hosted by swinging ex-surfer Pete Barker (Donahue) on his boat. She goes diving, does the new dance craze “the Shark” at a local discotheque and lounges by the pool. Oh and she also finds time to locate Barker’s kidnapped friend Samantha (played by Donahue’s then wife Valerie Allen, under 20 pounds of eye makeup), uncover Ludecker’s plot and defuse the bombs.

Regarding the on location work in Come Spy with Me, Andrea Dromm recalls, “ I had to learn how to ride a motorcycle, dive into the water and scuba dive for this. The thing is I thought the scuba diving was very dangerous. I didn’t take an official course and they had us go down in really quite bad weather as practice. They wound up using a double for me because I was really nervous doing it and I just didn’t want to take my life in my hands. When they shot the scene I think the regulators weren’t checked properly and one of the actors—it may have been Troy Donahue—got into some trouble under the water. One of the other actors, Martin Hewitt, who had taken a scuba diving course, had to save him.”

2009-06-17T07:29:00.003-04:00

YUM YUM

After The Poseidon Adventure, Carol Lynley's biggest hit and most recognized movie was the 1963 comedy Under the Yum Yum Tree starring Jack Lemmon as a lecherous landlord who only rents his apartments to nubile young things such as Glamour Girls Pamela Curran and Jane Wald. Carol played a coed who moves in with her boyfriend Dean Jones to live platonicly to see if they are "marriage compatible." The running joke is then who will seduce the gorgeous Lynley first, as if either had a chance in staid 1963. Carol is amusing in her drunk scenes and supporting players Paul Lynde as the envious groundskeeper and Imogene Coca as his droll disapproving wife and Lemmon's housekeeper deliver funny quips.

Under the Yum Yum Tree is now finally available on DVD but only as part of The Jack Lemmon Film Collection. The set also includes Phffft! featuring Kim Novak, Operation Mad Ball, The Notorious Landlady, and Good Neighbor Sam featuring Dorothy Provine. In addition, the bonus materials include a two-part documentary hosted by Chris Lemmon featuring intimate interviews with friends, fans, and colleagues.

Purportedly Lemmon disliked the movie because he hated his role as the voyeuristic playboy but Yum Yum went on to become one of his biggest hits at the box office and snagged two Golden Globe nominations for Best Comedy and one for him as Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical. Not a fan of these other movies, here's hoping Yum Yum will be set free and soon available on its own!

2009-06-12T08:37:00.000-04:00

SUPPORT AN AUTHOR, BUY A BOOK!

Not mine, but you can if you like. Friend and entertainment reporter/author/actor/marathon runner Nelson Aspen has a very entertaining new book out called Nelson Aspen Hollywood Insider Exposed!: Secrets, Stars & Showbiz. He shares some very amusing stories from his time in show business. Plus a whole chapter on my fave actress, Carol Lynley, Nelson's best gal pal!

And Fantasy Femmes cover girl Celeste Yarnall has also written a new book titled The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care: A Home Handbook. After she escaped the jungles of South America as a female Tarzan in Eve, romanced Chekhov on Star Trek, and avoided the playboy advances of Elvis Presley who wanted "A Little Less Conversation" in Live a Little, Love a Little, Celeste built a real estate empire in the 80s and then walked away from it to get a PhD in Nutrition specializing in holistic health care. Her books are a must for pet lovers everywhere.

2009-06-10T06:41:00.002-04:00

IT'S GONNA BE A SWINGIN' SUMMER!

Check out Polar Blair's Den web site for an update on two of my Drive-in Dream Girls, Quinn O'Hara and Lori Williams. There are great screen shots of Quinn in the low budget Larry Buchanan directed In the Year 2829 (1967) and a recent photo of Lori who looks just fabulous.

Quinn and Lori co-starred together along with William Wellman, Jr., James Stacy, and Raquel Welch in the beach party knockoff A Swingin' Summer (1965). Below is an excerpt from the book regarding what they thought of diva La Welch:

Reno Carell’s most infamous casting was that of Raquel Welch as Jeri, the bookworm who learns to groove. Hiring Welch was a boost for the movie but also caused many problems on the set. Prior to A Swingin’ Summer, Welch was the Billboard Girl on the TV variety show The Hollywood Palace and played bit roles in movies such as Roustabout (1964) and A House Is Not a Home (1964). She received “and introducing” billing in the credits. Welch showed up with her manager Patrick Curtis. According to William Wellman, Jr., “Patrick Curtis was doing everything for Raquel. He was telling her what she should do, what classes she should take, who she should talk to, who she should stay away from.” Curtis became such a presence on the set that he was offered an associate producer credit. “He was a nice guy but a pathological liar,” adds Quinn about Curtis. “I think he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to manage me but I told him to stick with Raquel.”

Welch meanwhile was not endearing herself to some of her female co-stars or the crew. Lori Williams remarked, “Raquel Welch was a problem on this movie and she was a major, major bitch. She wanted to have her signature bikini in the film. I had bought my bikinis before we got to Lake Arrowhead and she wouldn’t let me wear any of them. I had to go out and buy new swimsuits. Working with her was not a lot of fun.”

Quinn O’Hara adds, “I had no trouble with Raquel. But I heard about that bathing suit incident. I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice of what to wear since I barely had time to get a wardrobe together. I thought Raquel is going to have to like it or lump it because I wasn’t getting another swimsuit.”

The headstrong Raquel also made enemies of the crew. “She did her own make-up and wouldn’t let the body make-up woman touch her,” recalls Quinn. “She swatted her hand away. The cameraman told me that she was going to look terrible with those windshield wiper eyelashes because they were so heavy and casting shadows on her face. I don’t think it made her look bad at all.” Lori Williams recalled, “She kept trying to get people fired. We lost two cameramen who quit because she was just wretched. For me, she was just the worst person I ever met during the time I worked.”

Coming from a different perspective, William Wellman, Jr. (pictured above dancing with Quinn) remarks, “Quinn O’Hara was very nice and a lot of fun to work with. Everybody got along wonderfully with Quinn. Lori Williams was very friendly also. But I don’t think Raquel Welch treated any of them badly, she just didn’t pay any attention to them. She kept pretty much to herself throughout the shoot. We shot this on location and a lot of the cast was partying most of the time. Raquel did not want to be a part of that. Her room was next to mine and I could hear her working on her dance routine. She was working all of the time. A lot of people who worked on the beach movies were there just for the good time. Raquel really took it seriously. I was married by this time and I wasn’t partying either.” Quinn O’Hara concurs with Wellman about Raquel, “Yes, Raquel did stay to herself. You didn’t really get to know her.”

2009-06-08T07:23:00.002-04:00

R.I.P.

Sadly, I have to report on another passing. Actor Don Edmonds died on May 29, 2009 from Cancer. I interviewed him for my book, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969. He was a great guy and we stayed in email contact for awhile. I had the pleasure to finally meet him in person at a Chiller Convention in New Jersey. Don was very humble regarding his acting and directing careers and enjoyed talking with fans. Click here for his web site that his fans will continue and below is my profile on him from my book:

Tall with sandy blonde hair, Don Edmonds was attractive with fine features but he lacked that leading man look. Consequently, he was saddled playing the goofy sidekick most notably in three surf/beach-party movies. Edmonds made his film debut as Larry in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) after knocking around Hollywood since 1958. Friendly with actor-turned-producer Bart Patton, Don was cast in two of his beach movies. He went from the shores of Malibu in Beach Ball (1965) to the slopes of Sun Valley in Wild Wild Winter (1966).

Don Edmonds was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His father relocated the family to Long Beach, California in the thirties and got work as a timekeeper at the shipyards. Soon the elder Edmond’s entrepreneurial son began offering to shine shoes for military men at the Pike an amusement park in Long Beach earning more money than his father. The cute-looking youngster also had a talent for singing and appeared in local USO shows singing “Mammy” in black face.

As a teenager Edmonds spent his time hanging out on the beach. “The first surfboard I ever saw was in 1950 when my friend Terry McGelrand who was this wild guy brought one back from Hawaii,” recalls Edmonds. “This board must have been fifty feet long and it had no fin on it. We loaded it up on his Woodie and took it down to the beach. We had always been belly floppers before that. He took it out into the water and stood up on it. We gasped, ‘Whoa, check that out!’

“We all began surfing after that,” continues Don. “A couple of legends came from our group. Hobie Alter had this shack out there where he was experimenting with different kinds of weights and woods. He began designing surfboards. Later he was famous for the Hobie Cat [which Matt Warshaw described as being “an easy-to-use 14-foot catamaran designed to launch from the beach and ride over the surf’]. The other guy who I really grew up with was about three or four years younger than us and he’d plead, ‘Can I hang around with you guys?’ We’d say, ‘No, go away! We’re going to look for girls.’ He was always the kid we’d chase away. His name was Bruce Brown who went on to make The Endless Summer.”

Though he was surfing around the same time as Mickey Dora, Terry “Tubesteak” Tracey, Mickey “Mongoose” Muñoz and Kathy “Gidget” Kohner, Edmonds did not encounter them in the ocean. “We never went up to Malibu because we’d end up in a fight,” states Don emphatically. He revealed that surf wars were common between the surfers from various beaches. The guys had their own turf to surf. You were expected to stay on your own beach and not invade anybody else’s.

After graduating high school, Don Edmonds joined the service and became a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. While stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina he joined the Spielhaus Players and appeared in works by such renowned playwrights as Tennessee Williams and William Inge. Returning to Long Beach, he was cast in several local theatrical productions before joining the Estelle Harmon Actor’s Workshop where his classmates included BarBara Luna, Bill Bixby, Millie Perkins and Ty Hardin. From there Edmonds was able to finagle an agent to represent him and began landing work on television most notably in five episodes of Playhouse 90.

While working on Playhouse 90, Edmonds became fascinated with directing. “I’d sit and just watch the director,” reveals Don. “I just knew I wanted to direct. I never just hung out in my dressing room. Instead I would come out on the set and observe gentlemen like Ralph Nelson and John Frankenheimer work. They were young guys back then making their bones too. This was the only schooling that I had. I was just so interested in the directing process.”

Edmonds made his film debut in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) playing a college guy who along with Joby Baker and Bart Patton befriend Deborah Walley’s Gidget on her island vacation. He landed a much smaller role as a doctor in his next movie The Interns (1962). In a wild New Year’s Eve party scene, he does The Twist with dancer Carroll Harrison. A photographer shot stills of it and they appeared in most of the popular fan magazines to publicize the movie. This and Edmonds friendship with a club reporter named Rona Barrett kept his name alive in the movie rags for years despite his small output of film work. Though he was being cast on TV in such series as Combat and McHale’s Navy, Don was only able to land minor roles on the big screen in two Walt Disney features, Son of Flubber (1963) and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964).

Television offered more opportunity for the struggling actor and he landed a regular role on the sitcom Broadside (the female version of McHale’s Navy) in 1964. But half way through the season his character was phased out because they had nothing for him to do. He recalls, “I really liked working with Joan Staley. She was neat and a very sexy girl. Sheila James was one of the brightest people I ever met. She graduated from one of the Ivy League schools and is now part of the Legislature in California.”

Edmonds’ friendship with Gidget Goes Hawaiian co-star Bart Patton came in handy when Patton became a producer and hired the young actor for lead roles in Beach Ball (1965) and Wild Wild Winter (1966). Though he worked with some heavy weight talent on Playhouse 90 in his early days in Hollywood, acting in beach movies did not diminish the work ethic Edmonds learned from them. He says, “When you are starting out in show business there are certain ethics you must learn. If you worked with people who had those ethics you either picked them up or got out. I was taught that you always show up on time and you know your lines. You’re a pro and never come in with a B-game. If you do that you are never going to make it in this town. No matter if it is one line of dialog or the lead, you act like a pro. So by the time that I worked in the beach movies that ethic had been ingrained in me. Also I was never an actor that had so many choices—I took what was there and did my best.”

Edmonds post-Wild Wild Winter acting career trailed off with appearances on the TV series Green Acres and a return to the beach in Gidget. “I did a few of episodes of Gidget with Sally Field,” recalls Edmonds. “She was only about 15 years old. The first time I ever stepped on set with this little girl, I had the lame idea that I was just going to work with another kid star. Well, I was never so wrong in my whole life! The camera rolled and suddenly I was saying lines to a consummate pro. Her eyes popped into mine and I could feel the connection, which I've only felt with very few actors I've ever worked with in my entire career. She absolutely blew me away. I knew right that second that she was going to be huge. Not just because of the Gidget series but because I was working with an ultimate actor. It was absolutely thrilling to get that feeling. I've worked with actors from Boris Karloff to Andy Garcia and as great as they were I never have worked with anyone that outdistanced her. That time proved me right and that she took the Oscar absolutely didn't surprise me. It thrilled me but it didn't surprise me. She's as good as they get in movies. I just wish she'd work more.”

In the late sixties Don Edmonds stopped acting for a period of time. “I gave it up because of my desire to get onto the other side of the camera,” reveals Edmonds. “I’d been around it a lot. I liked directing but nobody was going to hire me. Who was going to give me a chance? They just considered me a dumb actor. So that’s when Rick Rogers and I paired up.” Rick Rogers used the stage name Steve Rogers and had worked with Don Edmonds in Wild Wild Winter.

“Rick and I had these great offices on Brighton Way in Beverly Hills and we wore suits to lunch at La Scala. But we weren’t making any movies. We walked around with business cards convincing ourselves that we were producers for about a year and a half. Finally, I said, ‘Rick, we’re bullshit! We’re looking good and doing nothing!’ He didn’t care because he was wealthy and living up on Stone Canyon in a colonial mansion with his wife and two children. His family owned American Linen Supply Company and Steiner Products. But I’m over there on Orchid Avenue in an $85.00 a month pad and I can’t make the rent. I told him we were going to go out and make a tits and ass movie. He said, ‘My wife would never allow me to make a tits and ass movie.’ I said, ‘Yes, she will.’ And that’s how we made Wild Honey.” Edmonds directed and wrote the sexy comedy about a country girl who comes to the big city and gets in all sorts of trouble. But he and Rogers had a falling out due to “creative differences” and have never spoken since. “I don’t bare him any ill will but I think he does me,” says Don with a sigh.

Wild Honey (1971) made money at the box office and the film’s success led to more behind-the-scenes work for Edmonds during the seventies in soft-core sex films. He wrote Saddle Tramp Women (1972) starring porn actress Rene Bond, directed Southern Double Cross (1973), and wrote, produced and directed Tender Loving Care (1974) starring Donna Desmond as a nurse investigating the mysterious death of a boxer. Edmonds most infamous movies though were the cult film favorites Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974) and Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976) starring Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa, a sadistic Nazi warden. These low budget violent exploitation movies are still talked about to this day and have been called everything from “sleazy,” “tasteless” and “dreadful” to “amazing,” “superior” and “legendary.”

Regarding Ilsa, Don Edmonds says, “I appeared at the Chiller Theatre Convention in the fall of 2003 and people would walk up to me and tell me that I was the godfather of all the trash films that they love. I’ve never gone to a cult movie convention before and the reaction I received from the fans literally stunned me. These guys were practically kissing my ring. You wouldn’t believe how many web sites are dedicated to Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS—hundreds! It’s amazing!”

Don Edmonds returned as a triple threat with the violent bounty hunter film Bare Knuckles (1978) starring Robert Viharo and Sherry Jackson. During the eighties he was vice-president at Producers Sales Organization where he was involved in getting such big budget movies as Short Circuit (1986) and Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) produced. More recently Edmonds (who described himself in a recent interview as being “a film doctor”) worked in production on more mainstream films such as True Romance (1993) with Christian Slater, Val Kilmer and Brad Pitt, Fast Money (1995) and the direct-to-video Larceny (2004). “I was one of the producers of True Romance,’ states Don. “Quentin Tarantino wrote it but I didn’t know who he was. He came to lunch with the director, four suits, and me. We all introduced ourselves, shook hands, and sat down. Quentin whispered to me, ‘What’s your name again?’ I said, ‘Don Edmonds.’ He said, ‘The Don Edmonds?’ I replied, ‘I’m the only one I know.’ He asked, ‘Did you direct Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS?’ I hesitantly admitted that I did and he proceeded to list all the movies that I directed including the ones that I had forgotten about. He just floored me!”

In 2003, he returned to acting playing Uncle A in Killer Drag Queens on Dope starring Alexis Arquette and Omar Alexis in the title roles. “I’m brilliant in this, by the way,” jokes Don with a laugh. “I played the head of a family of mobsters. I can’t put two thoughts together. The character is confined to a wheel chair and I wear a patch over one eye. This is a silly, dumb movie that will probably never see the light of day.”

Today Don Edmonds is working once again with producer David Friedman on a new Ilsa movie about her daughter. Fans have been clamoring for another sequel for years. Looking back on his beach movie days, Edmonds remarks, “I am not embarrassed to have worked in these films but when I see them now I groan, ‘Oh, man!’ But it was a wonderful part of my life. I would not trade that experience for all the money in the world. It was a terrific time and era—the tenor of the country was much different then. Hollywood meant everything to me. I was in the movies. I was successful. Those times were the best. It was just fun. I would wake up each morning and think ‘what’s next for me?’”

Film credits: 1961: Gidget Goes Hawaiian; 1962: The Interns; 1963: Son of Flubber; 1964: The Misadventures of Merlin Jones; 1965: Beach Ball; 1966: Wild Wild Winter; 1980: Getting Over; 1986: 8 Million Ways to Die; 1995: Last Gasp; 2003: Killer Drag Queens on Dope.

2009-06-04T07:01:00.002-04:00

MEET MILLIE

On June 9th, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles will be screening the classic Academy Award winning drama, The Diary of Anne Frank. Director George Stevens' son will host the event and special guests are two of the film's costars, Millie Perkins who starred as Anne and Diane what's-her-name who played her sister Margot.

Millie won the Photoplay Gold Medal Award for Favorite Female Newcomer of 1959, but 20th Century-Fox, who she was contracted to, just didn't know what to do with her. For some inexplicable reason, they found starring roles for Diane but all they could muster for Perkins was the 3rd female lead in Wild in the Country (1961) opposite Elvis Presley.

After leaving Fox, sweet Millie co-starred with Robert Walker in the non-hit comedy Ensign Pulver, did two cult but barely released 1965 westerns for director Monte Hellman, Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting, and played Senator Hal Holbrook's wife and mother of 2 teenage sons (unheard of for a 60s starlet to play much older at that time) in one of the coolest films of the decade, Wild in the Streets (1968). When the voting age is lowered to 14 ("14 or Fight!"), pop star Christopher Jones becomes president and sends all the over 30s to live in "retirement homes" where they are forced fed LSD. Poor Millie is one of the "oldsters" carted off.

Perkins then acted on and off in the 70s only to return full force in the 80s graduating to mother roles beginning with At Close Range (1986) playing Sean Penn's mama. She has worked steadily ever since including a stint as Elvis Presley's mother in the short-lived but critically acclaimed TV series, Elvis in 1990.

2009-05-29T07:22:00.002-04:00

EASY COME, EASY GO

Sorry to report that the wonderful short film Vic starring Clu Gulager, Carol Lynley, Gregory Sierra, and others has been pulled from YouTube. Director Sage Stallone purportedly filed an injunction against his screenwriter who posted Vic online. It is too bad since as far as I know this was the only time the general public had access to view the film. And a good little film it is.

2009-05-26T07:04:00.002-04:00

KUDOS TO VIC

Carol Lynley's last acting role to date was about three years ago in a short film entitled Vic directed by Sage Stallone, son of Sylvester. In it, she plays a cool, icy casting director for an upcoming big budget motion picture. Clu Gulager, who worked with Carol back in 1962 on an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (pictured), stars and gives a heartbreaking performance as a washed up actor whom the film's young director is a huge fan. He gives him an opportunity to audition for a major role but Vic's insecurities and circumstances doom his chances.

Vic is a homage to all those 60s/70s TV guest star character actors whose names most people can't identify but whose faces are so familiar. Among the actors seen auditioning for Vic's role are Richard Herd, John Phillip Law, Peter Mark Richman, and Robert F. Lyons. In only a half hour the movie brilliantly captures what a horrible place Hollywood could be for hardworking actors with long careers who never found fame but keep struggling to get work.

Click here to see the entire film broken into four parts.

2009-05-24T07:57:00.003-04:00

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS MAGGIE THRETT?

One of the 60s starlets I get most asked about is brunette beauty Maggie Thrett whom I profiled in my book Film Fatales (co-written with Louis Paul). Some guys preparing a Whatever Happened to...? about guest stars from the original Star Trek are looking for her as Maggie appeared with Karen Steele (at left) and Glamour Girl Susan Denberg (at right) as "Mudd's Women" along with Roger C. Carmel as the devious Mudd.

Maggie Thrett was born Diane Pine on Nov. 18 in New York City. She began working as a model, gracing the pages of many magazines including the cover of Harper Bazaar to help finance her singing career. Thrett made her Off-Broadway debut in Out Brief Candle in 1962 and had a modest hit record with “Soupy” produced by Bob Crewe. The song rose to #36 on MCA’s Fabulous 57 in June of 1965 and Thrett headlined at a few clubs including the Basin Street East.

Soon after Maggie Thrett headed West and made her film debut in a very small role as “the second sister” in Dimension 5 (1966) starring Jeffrey Hunter and France Nuyen. She landed a contract at Universal when she accompanied a male friend to his audition. She got in but he didn’t. Her first film for the studio was the beach/spy spoof Out of Sight (1966) in which she played the karate-chopping F.L.U.S.H. assassin Wipeout who arrives in Malibu on a surfboard from Hawaii.

Due to her stunning dark ethnic look, Maggie was able to play Mexicans or American Indians and was a frequent guest star on TV westerns including Dundee and the Culhane, Cimarron Strip, and two episodes of The Wild Wild West including “The Night of the Running Death” (12/15/67) where she excelled playing a dancer named Dierdre (a.k.a. Topaz) who has a passion for molasses-covered Cherries Jubilee and is the girlfriend of assassin Enzo (played by female impersonator T.C. Jones). She fakes her death in order to aid Enzo, masquerading as a female British schoolteacher, in killing a princess. As a disguised Dierdre goes to shoot her, agent Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin) comes up from behind her and grabs her arm, deflecting the shot. He then says to his partner James West (Robert Conrad), “Let me present our dear friend Topaz to you James. We know her better as Dierdre.” Artemus then rips off her veil and quips, “And we gave you such a nice funeral.”

Reportedly, Maggie Thrett withdrew her life savings to buy out her contract with Universal. Her most memorable role thereafter was in the box office hit Three in the Attic (1968) playing a Jewish hippie who is making it with college Lothario Christopher Jones, along with coeds Yvette Mimieux and Judy Pace. When they all discover that Jones is having sex with them simultaneously, they tie him up in their dorm’s attic and try to drain him of his virility. After playing a prostitute in the feature film Cover Me Baby (1970) starring Robert Forster and a guest stint on TV's Most Deadly Game in 1970, she disappeared from the Hollywood scene.

If anyone has information on how to contact her, please let me know.

2009-05-19T08:02:00.002-04:00

I LOVE A MAN IN A UNIFORM!

My prior post bemoaned that Lincoln Center was not screening Steve McQueen's Soldier in the Rain. But to make up for it, Warner Bros. Exclusives has just released the movie on DVD as part of their On Demand service. Definitely worth a purchase despite how cold and rude Tuesday Weld and Jackie Gleason were to poor Chris Noel in her film debut.

2009-05-14T07:08:00.003-04:00

THE KING OF COOL

The Film Society of Lincoln Center will be hosting a tribute to one of my favorite actors, Steve McQueen beginning May 20. Some of his biggest hits will be screened including The Magnificent Seven, The Cincinnati Kid, The Sand Pebbles, Bullitt, Papillon (a personal favorite and one I already bought tickets to see), and The Towering Inferno. McQueen really is one cool dude as evidenced by the characters he plays.

Unfortunately, one film that won't be shown is Soldier in the Rain Steve's rare attempt at comedy where he plays a G.I. with all these get rich quick schemes in tries to entice his superior Jackie Gleason to go in on them with him. Steve's love interest is played by Fantasy Femme, Chris Noel. Below is what she told me about working with McQueen and co-stars Tuesday Weld and Jackie Gleason:

“Steve was incredible. He was a fascinating and sexy actor. I had a major crush on Steve but I wouldn’t go to bed with him because he was married. One time he invited me into his bungalow and began kissing me. I told him, ‘No!’ He responded, “But I’ve been to bed with every one of my leading ladies!” I very politely left and we became friends.”

Though Chris adored working with McQueen, she got the cold shoulder from her other co-stars. “Tuesday Weld was bitchy and didn’t like me. I even had to darken my hair because of her! And Jackie Gleason liked only who he chose to like. He wasn’t friendly. I’d say hello to him and he’d grunt something back. He didn’t like rehearsing either. But I got used to it. I liked working with Steve McQueen so much that it didn’t bother me how everybody else was.”

2009-05-12T07:11:00.002-04:00

CHECK IT OUT

Though I have no article in it, check out the just released new issue of Cinema Retro magazine. As always editors Lee Pfeiffer and David Worrall have produced a jam-packed issue full of great articles and interviews chocked full of glossy color photos. My favorite is the series they have been running about The Man from U.N.C.L.E. movies. This issue the focus is on Karate Killers. Well worth subscribing to if you are fans of 60s/70s cinema.

2009-05-11T07:19:00.002-04:00

OL BLUE EYES MEETS RAQUEL

Frank Sinatra's 1967 detective yarn Tony Rome where he played the carousing private eye who tangles with gold digger Jill St. John, unhappy heiress Sue Lyon, and tough talking Lesbian stripper Deanna Lund while hired by Lyon's father to find stolen jewelry down Miami way was such a hit that 20th Century-Fox requested a sequel.

The result was Lady in Cement (1968) and Sinatra was back as Tony Rome investigating the murder of a blonde he found dead underwater while scuba diving. Cost cutting allowed Sinatra only one starlet this time but when it is wild-haired, busty Raquel Welch no other starlets need apply. This was a very odd pairing as you can see from the trailer below. I do love me some Raquel and she makes for a much more interesting love interest than Jill St. John so definitely worth viewing.

2009-05-06T07:24:00.004-04:00

AND THE WINNER IS...

Model Rules! Yes, this acclaimed short starring and written by former 60s starlet Marlyn Mason continues its winning streak picking up two more Best Short Awards at the Salem Film Festival and the Northwest Emerging Artists Short Competition. Not one to rest on her laurels, Marlyn is in pre-production on a new short titled The Bag to begin filming in October.

Click here to view a clip.

Lucky Days! This excellent independent film starring, co-written, and co-directed by Angelica Page Torn and co-starring 60s starlet Gail Gerber picked up the Gold Remi Award for Best Feature at WorldFest Houston.

Click here to see the trailer.

Synopsis (from its web site):

Virginia (Angelica Torn) embarks on a quest for freedom during the last explosive weekend of Coney Island's renowned amusement park.

After the reappearance of her childhood sweetheart (Luke Zarzecki), Virginia discovers hidden truths about her boyfriend (Federico Castellucio) and her neighborhood that will force her to abandon everything she's ever known to the wolf pack of developers buying up and tearing down the boardwalk, or to sacrifice herself to the world that created her.

LUCKY DAYS is the last movie filmed in the Coney Island Amusement Park and offers a final glimpse into the faded glory of this historical destination that has been lost forever.

ALSO STARRING: Will Patton, Tina Benko, Gail Gerber, Timothy Doyle, Denise Lute, Marilyn Sokol, Roberta Wallach, Gary Wolf, Frank Wood, with Anne Jackson and Rip Torn.

2009-05-04T07:20:00.000-04:00

JUST A REMINDER!

Former starlet Gail Gerber will be the special guest at the Darinka Prose & Poetry Reunion this Tuesday May 5th, 7:30PM at Dixon Place in New York City's East Village. She will be reading passages about meeting writer Terry Southern on the set of The Loved One and about why Rip Torn did not make it into Easy Rider from her upcoming memoir Trippin' with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember.

Click here for more details.

2009-04-29T07:15:00.002-04:00

GRIND THIS!

Sexploitation movies of the 60s and 70s are not my cup of tea (too many bare boobs for me), but check out this great web site Alternate Cinema.com. It is really cool and if you are into these grind house "classics" they are available for purchase on DVD.

2009-04-27T07:03:00.002-04:00

DOMINO DANCING

One of my favorite web sites is Starlet Showcase. No surprise there! Click here to see a tribute to Claudine Auger, one of the most beautiful '60s Bond Girls in Thunderball (1965).